Forty Under 40

Larry E. Fulton, 39

President,
LEFCO Worthington, LLC

First, Larry Fulton trained himself on how to buy a business, then he learned how to run one. Finally, he went out and got one for himself, and there has been no looking back for the man who has known since college that he wanted to be an entrepreneur.

His first job after graduating from Florida A&M University in 1993 was as a small business lender with KeyBank. He then worked in structured finance for the bank.

“I helped a lot of guys buy and sell businesses, and I said, "Hey, this really isn't that hard,'” Mr. Fulton said.

But he wanted to learn more before he took the plunge himself, so he continued to educate himself both in the classroom — where he got his MBA from Case Western Reserve University in 2000 — and in the work force. Eventually, he ended up running a unit of Alcoa, which he said did a lot to prepare him to be a business owner.

In 2003, he bought the assets of a small company in Middlefield that made wooden pallets and immediately moved it to his native Cleveland. Mr. Fulton started with one employee and two customers. He said his original plan was to run the company in his off hours while keeping his full-time job at Alcoa. But once his new company, Lefco Industries, started to grow and support itself, he knew it needed to be a full-time endeavor.

So Mr. Fulton threw himself into the task, and today he has 27 employees, a long list of customers and some impressive corporate partners. In 2004 he bought another small business that made wooden crates for shipping, adding to his list of services. In 2005, vaunted Worthington Industries of Columbus chose Lefco as its partner to make returnable steel racks, pallets and other durable shipping materials.

Today, Mr. Fulton lives in Pepper Pike with his wife, Arlishea, and their three children. Mrs. Fulton, who met Mr. Fulton in college in Florida and followed him to Cleveland, said her husband has always had faith in Cleveland and wanted to give something back.

“I view Lefco's continued success as being positive for Cleveland,” she wrote in her husband's Forty Under 40 nomination.

Mr. Fulton said he isn't done yet, and is constantly looking for acquisition or partnership opportunities.

“Probably every other year you'll see me doing something big,” he said.